Twitch, the world’s most popular video game streaming portal, and the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) have reached a new agreement to regulate the use of music in network streams.
Through an email, shared on Twitter by several content creators, Twitch informed streamers of the new system that it will use to regulate and punish those who use music in its broadcasts without having obtained the rights to do so.
By far the only notable change for streamers is that they will have a pre-step, a warning from Twitch, that will allow them to correct the issue. As the Amazon-owned company highlights, this is a significant difference from past actions, governed solely by the DMCA.
Here is the text sent to the content creators:
“We are pleased to announce that we have entered into an agreement with the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) to create productive partnerships between Twitch and music publishers. As part of this agreement, we want to inform you of a new process that we are creating in which Participating music rights holders may choose to report certain uses of their music, which is more flexible and tolerant of creators using music in their streams inadvertently or incidentally than the existing process required by the DMCA and similar global laws.
At a high level, this new process, which is distinct from the DMCA, focuses on advancing the blatant uses of music and begins with a warning rather than sanctions. Now, when a participating rights holder reports the use of unauthorized music on a creator’s channel, the following will occur:
• As in the DMCA, we have a team that will review the reports and verify that they are complete.
• Unlike DMCA, Twitch will give creators the opportunity to correct course by first issuing a warning:
Twitch will remove all VODs and clips containing unauthorized music from the creator’s channel.
If a live broadcast involves one of several specific blatant music uses (examples include streaming music concerts and streaming pre-release tracks), Twitch may also issue a warning or penalty based on the creator’s history of that type of use of music. We will have more information to share here in the coming weeks.
This new process does not change the way music can be used on Twitch. As we have constantly said, it is never okay to include music on your channel unless you have obtained the necessary rights or have the authority to do so; doing so violates rights. of music creators and goes against Twitch’s mission to support all creators. But we recognize that not all unauthorized uses of music deserve equal treatment, and we hope that, as part of our agreements with music rights holders, we can take a balanced approach that supports creators on Twitch. “
The deal follows a massive wave of videos deleted by Twitch in 2020, due to DMCA claims.
Many streamers and analysts have stated that the agreement does not change the use of music on the platform at all, it simply modifies the procedure by which the content will be flagged and, potentially, deleted.
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